Is love partnership for everyone? Is it essential to a life well lived, or is that just a cultural myth?

True champions deal with success and failure, not just success alone.

The more time we spent together, the holier the world became.

I began to explore more body-centered approaches to emotional healing in the hopes of excavating deeper layers of unresolved material. The exploration began with a massage therapist who adeptly worked through layers of holding in my musculature for two hours per week. Although I was by no means muscle-bound, I was heavily armored, like an impenetrable fortress. As she peeled the armor, older and older memories emerged, muscles with a story that needed to be told.

It was one thing to be vulnerable when alone, something else entirely to trust another to hold my heart safe.

The petty details fell away, the essentials emerged.

There is beauty outside of beauty and there is hope within hopelessness.

The more open something is, the more difficulty it has with society.

How do we hold this safe, Lowen?” Sarah wondered aloud. The question struck me. “What do you mean?” I inquired tentatively. “Just being with you is enough. I feel so close to you already. Maybe if we keep it simple, we will avoid the upsets.

Everything in me was transforming again. How beautiful, I didn’t even need to be in a relationship for that to happen.